Theories on Ancient Astronauts

Updated on June 13, 2012

Ancient Astronaughts

Spacesuits, flying saucers, delta
wing jets and ray guns are depicted on everything from cave walls to ancient
Egyptian temples. Are they surviving eyewitness accounts of UFO’s from the ancient
past? Just examining them it would seem unlikely anyone could take them for
anything else.

In ancient times, demons and elves ruled
the darkness. Even in the Bible, angels were seen ascending into the
clouds. Could ancient astronauts have
visited our planet long ago?

In modern times the term 'ancient astronauts'
is generally used to describe aliens responsible for the most ancient
civilizations on earth. Where did these speculative notions originate?

According to a number of popular
authors, ancient aliens have visited us. A common shared thread
includes gods and deities of most religions are actually extraterrestrials…their
technologies being evidence of their divine status.

Popular Authors

Concepts such as these have been popularized by such authors as Erich Von Däniken, Zecharia Sitchin, Robert K. G. Temple and David Icke. Ancient astronauts have been widely used as a plot in many science fiction films and novels, but the idea ancient astronauts actually existed is not taken seriously by most scholars and academics.

Zecharia Sitchin's series, “The Earth Chronicles,” beginning withThe 12th Planet, gives his interpretation of ancient Sumerian and Middle Eastern text and artifacts from around the world. He believed gods of old Mesopotamia were actually astronauts from the planet “Nibiru.”" Sitchin claims the Sumerians believed Nibiru to be a remote "12th planet" (counting the Sun, Moon, and Pluto as planets) associated with the god Marduk.

Planet Nibiru

According to Sitchin, Nibiru continues to orbit our sun on a 3,600-year elongated orbit and also suggests the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is the shattered remains of the ancientplanet “Tiamat,” destroyed in one of Niburu's orbits through the solar system. So far, no evidence to support Sitchin's claims has been found.

The suggestion is much of human knowledge, religion and culture originated with extraterrestrial visitors in ancient times. Other ideas include civilization may have evolved on Earth twice. The landing of their spacecraft is actually the return of descendants of ancient humans who were once separated from their earthbound brethren.

The Sirius Mystery

Robert K. G. Temple's 1976 book, “The Sirius Mystery,” relates a story of the Dogon people of northwestern Mali. They supposedly preserved an account of extraterrestrial visitations from about 5,000 years ago. He refers to evidence, including theoretically advanced astronomical knowledge and comparative belief systems inherited by the tribe from other ancient civilizations. Temple's conclusions have been criticized by scientists, who point out discrepancies within his account.

The most prominent advocate for ancient astronaut beliefs is undoubtedly Von Däniken, author of several popular books on the subject such as His “Chariots of the Gods?” and Unsolved Mysteries of the Past. In these publications Von Däniken claims many ancient cultures were introduced by astronauts from another world. Proponents of ancient astronaut theories often maintain humans are either descendants or creations of beings who landed on Earth thousands of years ago.

In the Old Testament the Book of Ezekiel describes a flying object seen as a fiery whirlwind which upon landing gave the appearance of being made of metal. It is described as a wheel within a wheel containing four occupants, "living creatures," whose likeness was that of man. The passage continues wherever the wheels went the creatures went, and when the living creatures were lifted up the wheels also lifted up. In chapter 4 of “Chariots of the Gods?” von Däniken suggests Ezekiel had seen a spaceship.

Von Däniken also proposes ancient peoples were taught art and science by visitors from outer space. That is indeed an intriguing idea! But where is his proof for these claims? Not surprisingly, some of it was found to be fraudulent.

For example, there were photographs of pottery he declared had been found in an archaeological dig. The pottery depicts flying saucers said to have been dated from Biblical times. However, investigators from Nova found the potter who had made the pots. When confronted, von Däniken defended his actions arguing his deception was necessary because people would only believe if they saw proof.

However, most of von Däniken's evidence consists mostly of archaeological sites and ancient myths. He begins with the ancient astronaut theory and then, like trying to force a square peg into a round hole, attempts to make the data fit his ideas.

For example, in Nazca, Peru, he suggests the absurd idea of giant animal drawings in the desert as being part of an ancient alien airport. The notion these drawings related to the inhabitants' religion or science was never considered.

Moreover, he never gives the native population credit for any competent reasoning of their own. He discredits them with statements such as, "Either this data is to be explained by assuming these primitive idiots did this themselves or we must accept the more plausible notion they got help from extremely advanced peoples who must have come from other planets where such technologies as anti-gravity devices had been invented."

There have been many critics of von Däniken's work. Most of his detractors advocate prehistoric people were not the incompetent simpletons he depicts them as.

Maybe at present, we don’t understand how these primitive people accomplished some of the technological feats we see. We are amazed how ancient Egyptians moved huge cut stones and placed them in position. We marvel at the giant carved heads on Easter Island. Someday we may discover the answers to our questions. However, those answers will be found using proven scientific methods, not hypothesis and speculation.

For example, we now know how stone age people in Papua New Guinea, possibly managed placing huge stones on top of tombs, with little more than ropes, wooden levers, shovels and a little ingenuity.

Of course, it is possible visitors from outer space came to our planet earth a few thousand years ago. But it seems more likely humans were responsible for their own civilizations.

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Comments 10 comments

Amazing how many still believe Daniken's theories despite wide exposure of his work as crackpot nonsense - I remember my High school history teacher believing his theories

JY3502 5 years ago from Florence, South Carolina Author

You mean...you don't believe? Von Daniken for Prez!

arthurchappell 5 years ago from Manchester, England

lol - Thor Heyerdahl went to The Easter Islands and explained to the natives there that Daniken was claming how aliens built their statues for them as they were too primitive to do it themselves - the natives laughed hysterically before showing Heyerdahl how they could do it even now with equiptment and methods unchanged since the original statues went up.

JY3502 5 years ago from Florence, South Carolina Author

David Copperfield must have been on tour there.

arthurchappell 5 years ago from Manchester, England

Lol - Am prepared to consider the Trafford Centre shopping mall as of alien origin - it looks like nothing on Earth - such archirecture might be very popular on Mfytfiuyiui xx3#6LB and neighboring Worlds

AntonOfTheNorth 5 years ago

Hello

I agree that no hard evidence exists, but I was intrigued by some artifacts in the Bogota Gold Museum in Colombia, (you may be familiar with these)

basically, they are little tiny gold sculptures (very finely detailed work that could rest on your thumbnail), that at first glance appear to be birds with heads that would be attributed to one or another god. On a second look, however, none of the tails are bird tails, but are vertical (like a fish) and many have no lower fin (so rather like the tail of a plane). The wings are very regular and bear a closer resemblance to jet fighters than birds.

It could be surmised that the detail is too small to do organic wings properly, but the head detail is sufficient to those purposes. The museum guide presented these to us with the notion that the gold workers had the skill (based on other artifacts from the same area and era) to create exactly what they wanted to depict, and while flying fish do exist in South America, they do not exist on the Bogota plateau where these were made. (And they don't really look like fish either. They really look like symbolized small jet planes).

It was spooky, but of course, not conclusive. Still fun to imagine though!

Thanks for the article.

cheers

John 5 years ago

Well... reading all details about Pumapunku and watching the History's "Ancient Aliens".. as wise as we are thinking right now and as modern as we have evolved today it very easy to conclude that those ruins are clearly done with modern tools... whether a race from another planet or those civilisations are simply or actually more advanced than we are now is the answer... just consider the artifacts at the ancient sites in Mexico.. a figure w/ a man riding on something looking like a vehicle craft w/ exhaust... the space shuttle kuning figures in gold... etc... Dont turn a blind eye people...

Warrior4Truth 5 years ago from Los Angeles, CA

Amazing truth is revealed here!

klarawieck 4 years ago

JY, this is a very interesting topic. I imagine that it's one of those things we'll never be able to prove or disprove. I tend to think that it's hard for us today to conceive that human beings back then were able to accomplish so much with so little. Much easier to accredit the work to a friendly, visiting alien civilization.